Amriel's fingers stilled as she stared at the bck pnt nestled beneath the fallen log. Every serrated leaf, every crimson vein pulsed with malevolent intent, as though it fed on shadow rather than sunlight. The forest around her had gone unnaturally quiet, the very trees holding their breath.

  Khasta Vhar.

  The name slithered through her thoughts like ice water through veins. She sank slowly to her haunches, careful not to touch the pnt. The damp earth seeped through her worn leggings as a single ray of light filtered through the dense canopy, illuminating dust motes that danced around the bck leaves, almost as if the pnt commanded its own peculiar gravity.

  "Of course I'd find you today," she muttered, her voice surprisingly steady despite the storm brewing within. "Because apparently, the universe decided I hadn't faced enough impossibilities."

  The pnt, predictably, didn't respond.

  Amriel had been seven the st time their kingdom faced war with one of the Fallen, but the memories clung to her mind like the persistent ache of an old wound. Her father had been one of the fortunate few to return, though "fortunate" proved a hollow word that tasted of bitter herbs when spoken.

  The man who limped home was not the father she remembered—the vibrant figure who had lifted her onto his shoulders and made her ugh until her sides hurt had died on the battlefield. Only his shadow came home. He had come back quieter, his shoulders bowed beneath an invisible weight, his eyes distant and vacant like a sailor adrift without a horizon.

  Whatever brightness had once animated him had been snuffed out, repced by an emptiness as cold as winter's breath.

  Nythia, her mother, had often said, "It would have been better if he had perished on that battlefield. To live half a life is no life at all."

  Gods, Mother could be so cold.

  He never spoke of what he had seen. He simply sat for hours, staring into the hearth fmes as though willing them to burn away his memories.

  Time wore him down like a relentless tide against stone until one frostbitten morning, he simply did not rise.

  Her hand moved unconsciously to the silver ring hanging from a leather cord about her throat—her father's ring.

  Amriel had been the one to find him. That day was etched into her being with painful crity: the brittle quality of the winter light through frost-rimed windows, the peculiar stillness of his hands that had always fidgeted, even in sleep.

  "Damn it all," she muttered, her voice surprisingly steady despite the storm brewing within. The sound was swallowed by the unnatural hush of the forest, as though the words themselves were too intrusive for this sacred, terrible pce.

  "The Khasta Vhar only takes root in the pces where angels have fallen,” The verse from Nythia's teaching rang in her head.

  The fallen log where both the Khasta Vhar and the healing herb she sought grew side by side seemed a contradiction that bordered on mockery—death and life, omen and remedy, sharing the same decaying cradle.

  Her lips thinned into a determined line. "I don't have time for your existential implications," she informed the pnt dryly.

  Slowly the tremors in her hands faded and her pulse returned to its normal rhythm.

  Amriel took another deep breath, this one reaching deeper into her lungs. In the wake of being able to spontaneously read an ancient nguage—the symbols telling of a possible doomsday prophecy—finding a Khasta Vhar wasn't overly unsettling.

  "Perspective," she whispered, the word a talisman against fear. "One impossible thing at a time."

  The Horissa Vharia, the gentle sleep, still waited, its blue-green heart-shaped leaves gleaming like a promise against the forest floor. She needed that pnt. To leave without it after coming this far would be foolish.

  She crouched closer to the pnt, careful not to disturb the Khasta Vhar nearby. Despite Nythia's extensive tutege on the forest's flora, Khasta Vhar had remained theoretical knowledge—something to be memorized but never encountered. Now it grew before her, undeniably real, its presence a dark herald that couldn't be ignored.

  Drawing her knife from its sheath, Amriel made a clean, practiced slice near the base of the herb, leaving behind a few resilient leaves so the pnt could recover. The bde—forged by Simon—gleamed briefly in the muted forest light before she palmed it carefully, unwilling to fully part with it just yet. Its bone handle, carved with protective runes, felt reassuring against her calloused palm.

  Swiftly, she opened her herb pouch, tucking the precious pnt inside and pulling the draw strings tight.

  Palming her bde, she stepped onto the narrow path, her pace quickening as she moved toward home.

  The forest floor changed subtly as she ran—transitioning from the spongy moss of the deepest Vhengal to the more compacted earth of frequently traveled routes.

  Her mother's voice echoed in her mind, clinical and matter-of-fact as always: "The Fallen don't hunt humans. We're beneath their notice—fleeting, fragile things hardly worth their time."

  Not that I want to hang out and find out.

  Petite and slight of frame, Amriel knew she was often underestimated—her slender hips and lean build deceiving those who expected weakness. But she possessed a quick, determined stride that could outst even those with longer legs. Nythia had made sure of that, forcing her to run the boundary stones of the Vhengal, outside their cottage, each morning before breakfast from the age of five, regardless of weather or season.

  "You carry no man's strength in your arms," her mother had told her bluntly one dawn, as sleet stung their faces. "But you will carry endurance in your legs and cunning in your mind, or you will not survive the wilds."

  As the path widened, Amriel allowed herself a backward gnce. The deeper reaches of the Vhengal had disappeared behind a curtain of green and gray, the ancient trees standing sentinel at the boundary between the world she knew and the realm where older powers held sway.

  For a heartbeat—so brief she could have dismissed it as exhaustion pying tricks on her vision—something moved within that living curtain. Not the familiar rustle of a forest hare or the deliberate stalking of a lynx, but something else entirely. Tall, impossibly angur figures that seemed to bend the very fabric of twilight around them, as though reality itself recoiled from their touch.

  Her breath caught. Then the image was gone, leaving only trees and lengthening shadows as twilight approached.

  Just the wind. Just shadows. Nothing more, she tried to convince herself, knowing the lie even as she formed it.

  "First ancient prophecies. The bad omens pnts. Now hallucinations. Wonderful," she muttered, turning away. "Next I'll be dancing with forest spirits and having tea with the fae."

  Amriel turned away, her stride quickening to match her racing heart. Her waterproof leather satchel thumped rhythmically against her back as she moved.

  A shaft of dying sunlight pierced the canopy, illuminating her face in amber light. High cheekbones and delicate features spoke of her mother's lineage—the proud Sa’Dral bloodline. But those eyes—deep cobalt blue now darkened with concentration as they ceaselessly scanned the forest—those were unmistakably her father's legacy. Kier's eyes.

  Don’t look back. The thought flickered through her mind, unbidden but insistent. She obeyed.

  Her pace quickened along the narrowing path, boots striking the damp earth with a steady rhythm.

  A sharp gust of wind sliced through the trees, biting against her skin. Gncing upward, Amriel saw heavy clouds swirling above, a shifting mass of ste-gray shadows. Thunder growled in the distance—a deep, resonant warning that echoed through the valley.

  "Perfect. Absolutely perfect," she growled through clenched teeth. "I just need a little more time. Is that so much to ask?"

  The forest offered no answer beyond the ominous creak of wind-stressed branches.

  She broke into a run, breath hitching as adrenaline pumped through her veins. The narrow path twisted sharply, roots cwing at the ground like skeletal fingers. Each step carried her farther from the pce where an angel had once fallen, where ruin had taken root and thrived long after the celestial being had departed.

  The wind intensified, howling through the trees with a voice almost human in its fury, driving the first heavy raindrops before it. One struck her squarely between the eyes, startling her into a sharp breath.

  "Really?" she muttered, swiping water from her face. "Because I wasn't already having the day from hell."

  The rain began in earnest then—a gentle patter that quickly gathered force as the sky darkened further. Heavy droplets pelted the earth, turning the dirt path slick beneath her feet.

  Amriel gritted her teeth against the burn in her thighs, summoning a final burst of energy.The trees finally began to thin, ancient sentinels giving way to younger growth, then to scattered copses that marked the forest's edge. Beyond y the open expanse of the valley—unduting meadows of wheat grass that rippled like water under the assault of the strengthening storm.

  There, in the distance, stood her cottage—sturdy and weather-worn, its stone walls offering a promise of shelter against the tempest. Smoke curled faintly from the chimney, a beacon of warmth amidst the chaos.

  "Almost there," she panted, the words immediately snatched away by the wind.

  Thunder cracked directly overhead, so close that Amriel felt it reverberate through her body. The sky split open in a blinding fsh that transformed the ndscape into stark relief—for that instant, every bde of grass, every distant tree stood out in unnatural crity before being swallowed again by growing darkness. The thundercp that followed seemed to shake the very foundations of the earth.

  Amriel didn't falter. Her rain-soaked braid spped heavily against her back with each stride, water streaming from it in rivulets that joined the torrents already soaking through her clothes, chilling her to the bone.

  She didn’t care. The storm could rage all it wanted—she just had to reach the door.

  With a final surge of effort that sent pain ncing through her overtaxed muscles, Amriel reached the heavy oak door. Her fingers, numb with cold, fumbled with the iron tch before finally wrenching it open. She half-fell inside, using her body's momentum to sm the door shut against the howling wind.

  For several moments, she simply stood there, lungs heaving as water pooled around her boots on the fgstone floor. The familiar scents of home enveloped her—dried herbs hanging from the rafters, dry wood stacked by a lifeless hearth.

  Safe. For now.

  A particurly violent crack of thunder shook the cottage, rattling the copper pots and sending several dried bundles of herbs swaying on their strings. Lightning transformed the windows into brilliant squares of white light, casting Amriel's shadow in sharp relief against the far wall. The deluge hammered against the roof with such force that it sounded like a thousand tiny fists demanding entry.

  She closed her eyes, pressing her palm ft against the door as though physically holding back the storm. The vibrations of the raindrops travelled through the wood into her skin, creating a counterpoint to her gradually slowing heartbeat.

  Amriel’s ugh came unbidden, shaky at first before it bloomed into something wild and incredulous. She pressed a hand to her chest, waiting for her breath to return as her back sank against the door. The absurdity of the st few days hit her all at once—like some cruel joke the universe had decided to py.